Investigating Strategies for Pre-Class Content Learning in a Flipped Classroom

In a flipped classroom model, learning of basic content is shifted before class while in-class time is used for concept application. Empirical and controlled research studies are lacking on the best strategies to provide the necessary pre-class content instruction. In this study, we tested three methods of pre-class content learning—interactive online tutorials, video lectures, and textbook-style readings—while holding the content and the in-class application activities constant. Identical introductory, non-majors biology classes were manipulated at both a public, open-enrollment institution and a private, highly selective institution. We found that video lectures offer a small advantage to overall student learning over interactive tutorials or textbook-style readings. Although our two populations differed in their ability to effectively learn from pre-class activities, through a student-centered flipped classroom approach, students at both institutions demonstrated equal learning gains by the final assessment. Potential reasons for some observed differences are suggested.     

JROTC as a Substitute for PE: Really?

Purpose: Even though physical education (PE) is an evidence-based strategy for providing and promoting physical activity, alternative programs such as the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) are commonly substituted for PE in many states. The purpose of this study was to compare student physical activity and lesson contexts during high school PE and JROTC sessions. Method: The System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time was used to assess PE and JROTC sessions (N = 38 each) in 4 high schools that provided both programs. Data were analyzed using t tests, negative binomial regression, and logistic regression. Results: Students engaged in significantly more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during PE than during JROTC sessions and they were significantly less sedentary. Significant differences between the 2 program types were also found among lesson contexts. Conclusions: PE and JROTC provide substantially different content and contexts, and students in these programs engage in substantially different amounts of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Students in JROTC, and perhaps other alternative programs, are less likely to accrue health-supporting physical activity and engage in fewer opportunities to be physically fit and motorically skilled. Policies and practices for providing substitutions for PE should be carefully examined.     

Ideology and sociability: a review of new French research into the history of sport under the early third republic (1870–1914)

P. Arnaud (ed.), Les Athlètes de la République: gymnastique, sport et idéologic republicaine 1870–1914 (Toulouse: Editions Privat, 1987). Pp.423. FF175. ISBN 2–7089–532330.

P. Arnaud and J. Camy (eds.), La naissance du mouvement sportif associatif en France: sociabilitiés et formes de pratiques sportives (Lyons: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1986). Pp.422. FF 128. ISBN 2–7297–02938.     

Responding to the technological imperative: the experience of an open and distance education institution

This paper examines the key impact that technology is having on shaping and, indeed, fusing the worlds of work both outside and inside tertiary institutions. The transformation of organisations by technology creates key challenges for tertiary institutions which are identified. One tertiary institution's attempts to engage with these challenges is illuminated through case study research. The institution in question, Deakin University, is a major open and distance education organisation in Australia. In grappling with the technological imperative, issues of leadership, management and organisational change come to the fore. Leadership in dynamically evolving organisations committed to the use of educational technologies in a range of diverse teaching‐learning contexts is an enormously complex and difficult task. The complexities, ambiguities and difficulties of leadership in such an environment are illuminated in this paper through the presentation of a set of eight interconnected issues which reveal some of the experiences of people within the University who are attempting to manage educational change and technological innovation.     

Engagement in dialogue: tracing our connections or speaking across the space between?

Abstract

In this paper I contrast conceptions of self from two perspectives: an individualistic orientation and a communitarian approach. In doing so, the philosophical justification is Wittgenstein’s idea that individualism is produced and reinforced as a way of being, thinking and interacting in community. With this contextual frame, I argue that we are shaped by the language practices of our community to ascribe meaning and interpret our own relationships with others through our language lexicon and grammar. To illustrate the communitarian perspective I refer to Māori perspectives in which connectedness is axiomatic: in particular the concepts of whanaungatanga and whakapapa, as described by Ka’ai and Metge. On the basis that such concepts are predicated on language use, I suggest that we can learn the grammar of engagement in a discursive context that emphasises connectedness just as easily as in one which is founded on separateness. I argue that interacting with an other is to engage with the ideas, beliefs, and values that shape their language, even as we expose our own. Engaging between individualistic and communitarian understandings is presented as learning to bridge language gaps between different social constructs and understandings of reality.     

Continuity and Progression in Science Teaching at Key Stages 2 and 3

Recent classroom observation suggests that the science taught at Key Stage 3 has changed little over the past two decades despite the introduction of the National Curriculum reforms. At the same time the 'high stakes' testing at the end of Key Stage 2 has resulted in less experimentation in Year 6. As a consequence, positive attitudes to science, which are already in decline at primary school, dip further after transfer, particularly among more able pupils. This article examines some of the structural factors responsible for the current situation and argues that the solution has more to do with a shift in pedagogy rather than further changes in the curriculum.     

Home and preschool learning environments and their relations to the development of early numeracy skills

This study examined the influence of the quality of home and preschool learning environments on the development of early numeracy skills in Germany, drawing on a sample of 532 children in 97 preschools. Latent growth curve models were used to investigate early numeracy skills and their development from the first (average age: 3 years) to the third year (average age: 5 years) of preschool. Several child and family background factors (e.g., gender, maternal education, socioeconomic status), measures of the home learning environment (e.g., literacy- and numeracy-related activities), and measures of preschool structural and process quality (e.g., ECERS-E, ECERS-R) were tested as predictors of numeracy skills and their development. The analyses identified child and family background factors that predicted numeracy skills in the first year of preschool and their development over the three points of measurement—particularly gender, parental native language status (German/other), socioeconomic status, and mother's educational level. The quality of the home learning environment was strongly associated with numeracy skills in the first year of preschool, and this advantage was maintained at later ages. In contrast, the process quality of the preschool was not related to numeracy skills at the first measurement, but was significantly related to development over the period observed. The results underline the differential impact of the two learning environments on the development of numeracy skills. Interaction effects are explored and discussed.